Costa Mesa medical marijuana patient Rob Taft Jr. holds up his state-issued medical marijuana card outside Costa Mesa City Hall. He uses marijuana, primarily in edible form, to treat post-traumatic stress disorder. Taft is working to qualify a ballot initiative in November that would legalize up to eight medical marijuana dispensaries in his city. EUGENE GARCIA, STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER

Status of pot shops

Medical marijuana is legal in California, but state law isn't clear on who can grow and sell the drug, leading to a largely unregulated marketplace of street-corner dispensaries that pop up one day and close the next. Many cities have worked aggressively to shut them down.

Santa Ana is believed to have the most unlicensed, unregulated pot shops in Orange County. Some 177 have been shut down over the past four years, but at least 42 shops remain open and the city is embroiled in lawsuits against 15 of them, said city spokeswoman Tanya Lyon.

Garden Grove briefly allowed dispensaries to legally register with the city in 2011 in an effort to better regulate them, but the city switched course less than six months later, citing a conflict with federal drug enforcement actions. In 2012, the city asked for federal help to shut down its remaining dispensaries.

Anaheim won a court judgment in 2011 affirming the city could legally prohibit medical marijuana dispensaries; the ruling was upheld by the state Supreme Court. The vast majority of Anaheim's 140-plus dispensaries have since closed.

Los Angeles voters approved Proposition D in 2013 in an effort to limit the number of pot shops across the city and better regulate them. More than 450 dispensaries subsequently re-registered with the city to continue paying taxes – more than three times the number allowed to stay open.

COSTA MESA – Medical marijuana patient Rob Taft Jr. knows he could find a dispensary close to home to buy his cannabis edibles, but he chooses to drive to downtown Los Angeles instead.

Unlike in L.A., medical marijuana dispensaries aren’t allowed to legally set up shop in Orange County, which means local dispensaries largely operate under the radar, without monitoring by city officials.

“I’m in the legal support business – I do everything by the book,” said Taft, 44, of Costa Mesa, a legal-support professional. “I want to see people running these businesses who are law-abiding, tax-paying people.”

Taft, a board member for the Orange County chapter of the advocacy group Americans for Safe Access, is hoping Costa Mesa voters will see eye to eye with him.

This month, Taft’s group plans to begin circulating a petition to allow eight medical marijuana dispensaries in the city. The advocates must collect 4,896 petition signatures from registered voters to qualify the initiative for the Costa Mesa ballot in November.

“What we’re trying to do is to allow the city to have access to this and have it regulated, so patients can have dignified access,” said Randall T. Longwith, a Fullerton-based criminal defense attorney who heads Americans for Safe Access’ Orange County chapter.

The Costa Mesa initiative, called the Act to Restrict and Regulate the Operation of Medical Marijuana Businesses, or ARRO, would permit up to eight dispensaries to legally open in the city.

Workers would be required to undergo background checks, and the city could collect a 6 percent sales tax. Also, security guards would be required on-site, and the dispensaries could not open near schools.

“It’s the conservative view: We want it for medicinal value, but we don’t want to promote it as a cultural thing with our kids,” said Taft, who has a wife and 5-year-old son.

In Santa Ana, a similar initiative to allow at least 22 dispensaries to legally open in the city has already qualified for the November ballot. That initiative would allow Santa Ana to collect a 2 percent sales tax.

Proponents of the ARRO initiative say they expect to find similar success in Costa Mesa in the coming months.

Two years ago, another group of Costa Mesa medical marijuana activists fell just 108 signatures short of the required 5,811 needed to qualify a legalization initiative for Costa Mesa’s ballot.

Robert Martinez, a former Costa Mesa dispensary owner who led the city’s 2012 effort, said he expects residents will respond more favorably this time.

“The reality is the general public is going to support removing the ban,” said Martinez, 46, a biotechnology sales representative from Costa Mesa who is unaffiliated with the current signature effort. “We had overwhelming support from the community, and the climate has changed today versus two years ago.”

Earlier this year, Americans for Safe Access activists tried to get their initiative on Santa Ana’s ballot as well, but county election officials determined through sampling that too few of its petition signatures were valid. The group is appealing for a full verification of all of the signatures, Longwith said.

If the ARRO initiative had qualified in Santa Ana, voters there would have seen two competing initiatives on the November ballot, giving them a choice between taxing the dispensaries at 2 percent or 5 percent, among other differences.

Costa Mesa has had a ban on medical marijuana dispensaries since 2005, but has struggled with pushing out unlicensed storefronts.

In 2012, as dozens of unregulated dispensaries flourished in the city, federal authorities raided two shops and ordered 24 others to shut down. The federal actions largely eliminated what Costa Mesa leaders decried at the time as a “mass cultivation and distribution of marijuana” in the city.

Costa Mesa City Councilman Gary Monahan said times have changed, and the city should work proactively on a more realistic solution.

“It’s going to happen sooner or later – either Sacramento is going to tell us how to do it, or we can get out in front of this issue,” Monahan said.

Monahan said he’s exploring whether the City Council should preempt the ballot initiative by legalizing medical marijuana dispensaries unilaterally before the issue goes to voters this fall.

For Taft, the Costa Mesa resident who uses cannabis on occasion to treat his PTSD, the issue boils down to providing safe access to a drug that can already be obtained illegally on the streets.

“Medical marijuana is being bought and sold here everyday, and we can’t pretend not to know this,” Taft said. “It only makes sense to regulate this as much as possible and weed out the criminal element.”

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